This post was necessary when I had to jump into a friends Facebook conversation. An assertion disturbed me enough for me to narrate my experience.
I lived in a place called Nizamudin In Delhi. It used to be a posh Punjabi middle class neighborhood till late 90s. The demographic started changing in 1998, till mid 2000s, it was mostly muslim.
Come eid, and the streets started seeing patches of blood after the new settlers came in. In the back alleys, towards the dargah, where I seldom used to go, I was invited by a muslim family I had become quite close to. It was bakr eid.
The entire alleys drain was saturated with blood from several goat sacrifices. I felt pukish, but with my husbands cajoling, walked the hundred odd meters to the home.
A biryani dish awaited us. It was gleefully revealed that the goat was 'sacrificed' and the family's 8 year old had done the honors with help from the uncle.
Over the next few years, it was revealed that young boys were trained to perform such 'sacrifices'.
Over the coming years it became clear that there was a high degree of criminality among the community due to this.
If Kashmir's ethnic cleansing, Bangladesh and Pakistan's declining minority population doesn't convince you that it is not a community that can live with any other in harmony. Nothing else will.
Don't say inane nice things just to appear secular. See and say things as they are.
(Copied verbatim from the Facebook wallpost of Narayani Ranganathan in November 2022)
